


One-Sided

by Sangfroid_Sorrow



Series: Love is Silence [4]
Category: The Evil Within (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Depression, Emptiness, F/M, Heartache, Heartbreak, M/M, One-Sided Relationship, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide Attempt, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-23
Updated: 2016-09-23
Packaged: 2018-08-16 22:32:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,239
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8120071
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sangfroid_Sorrow/pseuds/Sangfroid_Sorrow
Summary: Joseph's been in love with Sebastian Castellanos for ten years. At least, as much in love as a man who feels nothing to such an intensity can be.





	

Joseph Oda is twenty-three when the KCPD finally hire him. He has a dozen chicken-scrawl pictures (courtesy of his three-year-old self) depicting the possible escapades of playing detective. It used to sound so thrilling— fast action car chases and complicated investigations. He once imagined the long nights of staring into decks of files as something fulfilling. Something contenting.

As things often do, the job proves disappointing.

It's takes a month for him to realise he's not stuck with the boring rookie work— no, these is the are the big leagues, and they're boring as fuck. He spends more time colour-coordinating his sticky notes than he does on the field. Krimson City, for all its name suggests, is all but a blank palette. It's black and white and he's wondering if he's fucked things up past repair.

Then,  _then_  he meets Detective Castellanos.

 

* * *

 

By the time Joseph's twenty-four he's dating a girl that is very much acceptable, though it feels like cheating. Sebastian is his partner in everything but sentiment and it's this companionship that makes the boredom worth it. A godsend in the workplace, the man is remarkably entertaining.

His gruff, harsh words make Joseph smile more than any soft-hearted compliment. Sometimes it feels a little like love. Every ' _what the **fuck**  are you doing?' _echoes a wary concern— it's the closest to devotion he'll ever be. He doesn't regret it.

Things fall apart all too quickly though. He's laughing at some casual joke the man has rattled off when three words spill from his lips. They're not the ones Joseph wants. They're the ones he's grown to fear. The ones that break his heart.

"I'm getting married."

 

* * *

 

Myra's lovely. Her face is as strictly beautiful as it is beautifully strict, and though she's demanding and rough, such honest qualities merely compliment those in Sebastian.

They marry as Joseph turns twenty-five, and he plasters a rough estimate of a grin onto his face as he plays the role of best-man.

Fuck, it hurts. Something wretched shrivels in his chest. Maybe it's his heart.

"Congratulations," he tells his partner, and means it. Sebastian has wormed his way out of Joseph's life just like anyone who's ever cared has, and it's probably for the best. He doubts he'll see the man again. Not in the same way. He thinks he'll reject the nicknames and familiarities and any of the damn feelings hanging on, and let him go.

 

It's harder than it sounds.

* * *

 

At twenty-six Joseph asks his very much acceptable girlfriend to marry him. Her eyes widen and a soul-wrenching smile etches itself across her pretty face.

"Thank god," she sobs suddenly. Her eyes water and she shakes, staring at the tolerably shiny ring he offers her. "I thought... I thought you were giving up on me, Joseph! Oh god, oh god! I— I love you so much, Joseph Oda."

The band is loose on her elegant fingers, and he almost flinches.

"This is forever," she whispers in awe. "You're giving me your forever... oh,  _god_. I promise my everything," through a wet grin she moves to embrace him. "By god I love you."

Joseph Oda wonders how.

 

* * *

 

He celebrates his anniversary a month past his twenty-seventh birthday and feels absolutely nothing at all.

 

* * *

 

Twenty-eight-years-old and he wakes up on the couch. The room is unbearably neat— his wife does her best to play her part. She makes him tea and puts in the spoon of sugar she thinks he enjoys.

Joseph doesn't bother correcting her, sipping through the burning sweet and allowing familiar numb to consume him.

Sebastian calls. He doesn't visit so often anymore, although he's no more busy than he's ever been. Joseph accepts this quiet dismissal, regardless of how it stings, because maybe he can finally give up. On what, he's not sure. 'Everything' is beginning to sound like the perfect answer.

"I'm having a baby," the other man laughs into the phone. It's abrupt and shocking and Joseph simply crumples, curling into himself. "Fuck, I'm going to be a father."

The joy in Joseph's voice is strained."I should hope you're not the one having a baby," he chuckles. It cracks. Sebastian doesn't notice.

"May as well be, I feel so dizzy."

"Me too," he agrees, sinking into his chair. The cushion swallows him whole and his world distorts to monochrome.

 

* * *

 

He's twenty-nine and his beau is horribly concerned.

"You haven't eaten in days," she mutters, fluttering about in a dainty frenzy. She's cleaning and cooking and checking the taxes. Joseph is leaning into the sharp seat of his revolving chair, blankly gazing into a document he cares next to nothing about. His two-week break has been spent at this desk. It's better than pretending to emote. "Please, talk to me now, I need to know what's  _wrong_."

Joseph sighs into his hand. He doesn't turn to face her. "Darling," he says tiredly. "We have a forever to talk about it."

 

* * *

 

His thirtieth is a sombre occasion. It feels like a hundred lonely, petty years, and he wishes he could just get the next approximate sixty over with.

"You're catching up," Sebastian comments idly, drunk and nostalgic. "I think I'm seeing some grey hairs on you, Jo."

"Fuck off."

 

* * *

 

He has a daughter at thirty-one. She's beautiful, though the hazel of her eyes looks like the faded brown of Sebastian's, at least more so than Joseph's own.

Her mother cradles her close, and he notices how protective the hold is, as though she has finally grown weary of her husband. He deserves it, he reminds himself, for marrying such a bright-eyed girl and mangling her into something sallow and exhausted.

Almost cruelly, he convinces his spouse to name the child Calla — a form of 'Lily' — when he realises another man had visited her in hospital. ("The father," a clueless nurse chimed in. "A real looker at that, but he looks just like the kid! She's got lucky genes, that one!")

In hindsight, he supposes neither of them have been all that faithful to the other.

 

* * *

 

Lily Castellanos dies when he's thirty-two and suddenly it's Sebastian who needs  _him_.

Myra is dour and trapped in invisible mourning, preferring to lock her bedroom door (they couldn't even share a bed these days) or hang around her little girl's grave. Joseph knew the family's schedule well enough to greet her every morning with flowers to scatter there before he enters the house to seek out the hung-over mess on the couch.

"How do you do it, Jo?" Sebastian slurs. He looks newly devastated. His next words are thoughtless, though Joseph reigns in his surprise. "Your wife doesn't give a damn about you anymore either, but here you are! Fucking on top of the world, aren't you?"

Vacantly, Joseph doesn't ask 'how did you know?' or 'what the fuck is your problem'. Instead, he just continues listening, allowing the bitter complaints to wash over him. He's come to understand, in what's nearly been a decade, that Krimson City was never the blank palette— no, it's always been him.

He's breathing and, reluctantly, alive. Or, that is, until Sebastian's alcohol-sour breath becomes acute as his lips move closer to cover Joseph's own. He inhales sharply, and, with an emptiness as sudden as death, allows the inebriated kiss to steal whatever life was left in him.

 

* * *

 

Stuck in a nightmare more vivid than reality, at thirty-three he tries to pull the trigger.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Just wanted to vent-write after a stressful week, sorry if it ended up seeming forced. Any feedback is appreciated and have an awesome day!


End file.
